The Magnolia Tree

When I first moved into this house

I was married to his brother

after his feet of clay

revealed the “one true” part of our true love to be

false.

No matter; this really was my

one true love-we just needed a break

from the suffocation we both felt.

His brother and I married

against all odds and many suggestions that

it might be the wrong solution to the problems.

I drift…his brother, my new husband and I

bought a house and the first summer

our neighbor went to South Carolina for a visit

and I asked him to bring me back a Magnolia Tree.

Good soul that he was, on the plane back

in his possession

2 Magnolia Trees.

My one true love, who I will now only refer to

as Romeo, came to help us plant the tree.

The “tree” was little more than a stick.

Romeo began to prepare the planting site by digging

an appropriate hole. After several days the hole was hug

and  neighbors and even strangersstopped by to survey what he was digging.

The hole looked like a passageway to China…

In to the whole went the teeny stick Magnolia tree.

After several years, it grew tall enough for our twin granddaughters to pose  with it when

it was about 5 feet tall.

After about 8 years in it was 8 feet tall but nary a bloom

On the advice of a sage gardener

I sneaked out at night and wacked the stem with a piece of hose

under cover of night so no one could see and report me

for tree abuse or insanity.

At about 12 years of age, I discovered a spent flower pod while raking up the leaves

not ever seeing or smelling the bloom.

The following year I watched

and waited

and was rewarded by four or five flowers.

The tree is now about 20 years old; in May it started to bloom

and we must have had 20 blooms.

There were blooms we could not reach and they were left on the tree

to cast intoxicating fragrance

around the yard.

Yesterday I came home and went out back to

survey the Queendom. On the very top of the tree

I saw a flash of red. I spotted several more

one of which, Romeo, now back with me

after a very long time away; tried to bend down the branch

to give us a better look.

The spent pods, left on the tree had swollen very large

and were now bursting open to reveal bright red seeds.

I would love to plant the seeds

and make trees for the twins,

now grown women with their own children.

They are no longer really interested in the garden or the trees.

The trees cycle

and mine have evolved.